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  “Shirley, could you be a dear and toss me some bottled water?” Mayonise said, addressing the female paramedic. She reached into a bag under the gurney and pulled out three cold bottles, handing one to each of us. Mayonise cracked his open and drained half the bottle, letting out a sigh and shaking in his seat. “Cold water gives me the shakes,” he said, fat cheeks wobbling. Jackson set his bottle down on the table and went back to alternating stares between his fingernails. Mayonise cleared his throat, eying Jackson across the table. And again a second time before Jackson looked up. Mayonise raised an eyebrow to which Jackson sighed and reluctantly pulled out a pen and small notebook from his breast pocket. Good to see some effort, but like I said, he already had his story.

  They wanted to know all about my day starting from the time I woke up. I replaced the clouds with sunshine and told them most of the truth. I hadn’t seen Doug since Wednesday, which was the usual toward the end of the week. Usually Doug found a way to get money from someone or his disability check came in and he was off to the casinos. The more he made, the longer he stayed out. I buttered up our relationship, that Doug had been laid off and was having a hard time finding work. They asked if Doug was looking for anything before he died, pointing to the disarray of the apartment. I shrugged it off. I couldn’t believe the bullshit that was coming out of my mouth and I almost choked up at one point.

  In that moment something changed in Mayonise. A look, maybe something I’d said had penetrated his armor that kept him detached from crime scenes. The look in his eyes showed genuine concern. He couldn’t believe I actually walked around the city.

  “It’s dangerous out there at night for a young woman such as you.”

  Jackson, the bastard, actually grinned at the statement. They wanted contact information for the salon and I gave them a card. I kicked myself for not making something up—working fast food, anything. But I guessed if the Bouncer knew, then Jackson probably knew and so it didn’t matter in the end. When Mayonise dug into the details of when I returned home to find Doug, Jackson shot to life, moving out of his reclined position, placing his pad and elbows on the table. He hunched forward and stared me in the eye as I thought about my answer. Mayonise didn’t sense the change. Maybe it was an everyday old cop trick. I knew what it meant. I wasn’t about to mention the bookie’s men anyway. Something was up with the old paramedic and I wasn’t going to risk getting myself beaten to death by Jackson or worse. Doug’s bruising and fresh scar were still forefront in my head. I left out my hand in Doug’s death, the bookie’s men and the money they stole. Mayonise continued to be concerned about the look of the place. I played it off as being messy and Doug’s final moments before taking his own life. Mayonise seemed satisfied and Jackson backed off a bit, relaxing into his chair.

  The old paramedic opened the door and called Shirley into the bathroom. She took the body bag and laid it on the floor. There wasn’t enough room for both to stand inside and the bottom end of the bag extended a foot out of the room.

  Mayonise put a swollen hand on my forearm and said “You don’t need to watch this, hon.”

  But I did.

  Jackson had other thoughts.

  “Whoa, whoa, hold on now, miss. You look a bit woozy. Let’s just sit back down,” he said. As I stood, a foot shot out in front of me, causing me to stumble into him. The bastard had this cover-up shit down. Paint me the scared and hysterical daughter, the victim of a father who just offed himself, unable to clearly recall events before and after. I was falling right into the game. I wondered how many favors he performed and for who. Was he in debt like Doug? Like me? Was this the puppet I was to become?

  Maybe I’d learn to enjoy ruining lives and the debt would be forgotten, just the spark that set me on the path. I pushed against him but Mayonise was up and joined the blue wall, holding me back. I couldn’t see past his girth but I heard shoes squeaking in the tub, like rubber tires on wet pavement, followed by grunting and a heavy wet sound, like raw ground beef smacking a cutting board. I stared Jackson down as I felt a tingle of adrenaline, clenching my hands in a desperate attempt to keep it buttoned, not to lose it and end up in jail for assaulting an officer.

  Then Jackson said, “That a girl,” and I snapped. I swung a wide right haymaker with everything I had, right for his face. Jackson avoided the punch, used my momentum to spin me and slam my face down on the table. He wrenched my left arm back and I cried out as my shoulder exploded in pain while he fumbled for his cuffs. Tears spilled from my eyes and I convulsed in his tight grip. The shock of Doug’s death had fully worn off and I felt my world implode as the first cuff snapped around my wrist.

  Mayonise put a firm hand on my back and instructed Jackson to relax. Jackson bought the canned speech on how violence wasn’t the answer, let go of my arm and snapped his cuffs back on his belt. I lay on the table like a rag doll, my heart pumping blood through my throbbing arm.

  “How could you do this to me?” I muttered. Jackson gave me a look like he’d shoot me on the spot.

  “What was that?” asked Mayonise.

  I mumbled a mix of unintelligible thoughts, watching feet move about as the EMTs finished the prep. Jackson’s blushing cheeks poorly concealed his anger. I pushed off the table. Stood on my tiptoes to try and see past the cops to the bathroom.

  “Speak up now. You better not be holding back on me,” Mayonise said.

  The paramedics shifted the body bag out of the bathroom and onto the gurney like a snake. Doug’s body slumped into the top forming a lump when they put the feet on. The girl began awkwardly strapping it to the gurney.

  “Hold on a second,” Mayonise said. He turned and walked to the gurney addressing the paramedics. “Will you two get it together? Jesus.”

  He waved the girl off and adjusted the body himself. When Doug refused to cooperate, Mayonise unzipped the bag to better move the limbs.

  “We shouldn’t really do that. It might offend the family,” whispered gray-haired, glancing at me.

  “Mayo, we should head out. There’ll be more calls coming into the station,” Jackson said.

  “Since when did you become a go-getter?” Mayonise pointed out his partner’s growing distress. “It hot in here?”

  Jackson blushed an even darker shade of red. He looked me in the eye and for a second I thought he was going to mouth something, but he stopped at the sound of the bag further unzipping. The foul smell of death returned to the room. Mayonise pulled down the right side of the bag, inspecting the bruising and the wounds. He prodded the body with ungloved sausage fingers like he was testing meat to see if it was fully cooked.

  “There is some trouble here,” he said bending down to inspect the stitching. “Did your father gamble much?”

  “Every once and awhile. Doug wasn’t very good at cards.” I continued to lie, stuck on the notion that the less the cops knew, the better.

  Mayonise dropped more of his guard. He dug around his belt for something. “Work on the job for a long time and you see some pretty weird shit. But this… I’m afraid to tell you this isn’t unusual.”

  Jackson’s radio squawked twice, static cutting the tension in the apartment. “All units in the area respond, Code 60 at 4th and Plum. I repeat, all units in the area respond, Code 60 at 4th and Plum.”

  Jackson cut back immediately, visibly relieved. “Dispatch, Unit 43 responding, over.”

  “Let’s do this, Mayo,” Jackson said, grabbing his gear from the table.

  Mayonise let out another sigh. “Kids,” he said, fumbling through his left breast pocket.

  “Here’s my card. If you need an ear, give me a call and we’ll talk.” He handed me the wrinkled card and putting a paw on my shoulder, said, “I’ve seen others survive worse. You’ll be okay.”

  He appeared to believe the lie. I’d hid all the important details from him. He had no idea of the situation I’d been thrust into—nor would he. Good cop, bad cop, there wouldn’t be a call. Mayonise followed Jackson out the door and into the
night. Onto their next crime scene, next interview.

  The paramedics were slower to leave, zipping up the bag and strapping Doug back down to the gurney. They worked in silence, ignoring my presence in the room as they finished up. As they pushed out the door and into the hallway, the paramedic with the gray hair told me I should run hot water in the tub so the blood didn’t stain. It took a minute to process and by the time it did they were gone, down the hallway at the elevator. I slammed the door and fell into it, leaning my back against the busted particleboard and thinking.

  I glanced around the apartment. The living room was bad, the bedrooms were even worse. Drawers had been pulled out and dumped. What little I possessed was spilled, tangled together on my bedroom floor, my mattress dumped on top. It was too much. I went to the freezer and pulled out the bottle of vodka Doug kept on reserve. He’d been at it hard before getting in the tub, but there was a solid 5th left. I poured it straight into a glass, not bothering to measure, and choked down a large gulp. My hands felt numb. I couldn’t think. Doug’s debt, the scars, corrupt police. What the hell had he gotten me into? I drained the remainder of the bottle into the glass, so cold that ice crystals formed a thin layer on the surface.

  Instead of the couch, I sat in a white plastic chair on the apartment’s small balcony. Doug had been adamant about not smoking inside and I’d humored him to avoid the conflict. It was strange then, that I still found myself on the balcony, watching the smoke billow out my nose and into the night air. He wasn’t coming back to lecture me on the habit. Outside, the lights from the casino danced in the sky. Music thudded from a far away party.

  For fourteen years I had lived alone with Doug and his addictions. Alone, but not like this. Nothing like this. I stood on the balcony a shattered woman from a broken home, waiting for a man to step from the shadows and put a bullet in the back of my head, declaring that I’d taken too long and a price must be paid. The cigarette between my fingers extinguished at the filter. This wasn’t my idea of freedom.

  8

  My face was a mess, smeared mascara making it look like I had been punched in both eyes. I got a beer from the fridge, taking a long pull before going back to the tapes. I wanted to curl up and watch them all, but the tape I was most curious about was my fourth birthday, the one Doug had been watching before he died. I put the tape back in and pressed rewind. The VCR whirred to life. I grabbed the remote and fell into the couch, trying to relax. My muscles felt stiff like I’d slept too long in the wrong position. When it reached the beginning, the VCR clicked and whirred and static appeared on the screen. My heart pounded in the silence of the apartment. The video had no sound at first, just shots of grass and large and small toes as someone fumbled with the camera. Doug was filming, I recognized his shoes. He wore the same damn beat up leather shoes with tassels every time he went outside. Whether mowing the lawn or drinking a beer with the neighbors. Always the same shoes with the thread popping out of the side. The camera moved again and there was sound.

  “Oh, there, I think I got it,” he said, righting the camera. “Say hi, Mirna.”

  My four-year-old-self waited, eyeing the camera, busy painting my lips with a bottle rocket popsicle.

  “Say hi, honey,” he said, zooming in for a close-up shot.

  “Hello!” I said, followed by sharp laughter. Doug chimed in and soon we were snarling and making monster faces at each other. Then I ran off into the melee. The birthday party was in our backyard. Doug had planted the tree fence the summer before and they were just starting to grow and fan out. All of the neighbors were there and Doug’s gambling buddies. I ran to my mom and hugged her leg, wiping a bit of the popsicle along her exposed thigh. She yelped at the cold, scolding me with a laugh. Doug followed, bumping into her exposed shoulder as he gave her a big smooch on the lips, and then, turned the camera, holding it out to face them. The picture was a little off center and they smiled like they were looking into the sun. I fumbled for the remote and paused the picture before he could turn the camera away.

  My mother’s forehead was damp with sweat, one of her pink polka-dotted handkerchiefs tied over her blond hair. Her pink lipstick left a tinge on Doug’s lips and stubble. Their wrinkles all smile together, and for a moment the past is only an echo. It was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen.

  I instinctively ran my fingers over my pants pocket, searching for my missing phone to capture the moment and keep it close. Never forget the good parts. But the VCR had grown bored of the image. Paused for too long, it shifted automatically back to play.

  Doug panned back to the yard. I chased the neighbor’s baby chocolate lab in circles, pinching my fingers open and shut, trying to grab ahold of her elusive tail. The film cut to me sitting at the patio table, a giant wedge of watermelon in my hands. I could have nibbled at it for years and gotten nowhere. My mother used to take out the seeds and hand me large pieces to play with. I didn’t eat much of it, but it kept me occupied while the adults did whatever they did nearby. Doug passed through the frame, cigar in one hand, tallboy in the other, with two of his buddies, Ralph and Quarters, heading for the basement to smoke and play cards. He gave my mother a kiss on the forehead.

  The film jumped in time once more, the picture pitch-black. There were some scuffling sounds. Doug said, “Ready?” A lighter flicked and a sparkler exploded to life on screen. I held it in two hands, away from my face.

  “Be careful now, Mirn.” I could tell he was drunk by the sound of his voice. I couldn’t believe that he trusted me with a sparkler. We always had sparklers at my birthday. Doug bought them early as soon as they went on sale for the Fourth of July. I twirled in circles in the darkness, drawing shapes with the sparkler and shrieking with delight.

  “That’s my girl,” Doug repeated, “That’s my girl.”

  The screen turned to gray snow, VCR switching gears, rewinding the tape to the beginning. I sniffled and looked down at my shirt to find it soaked with sweat and tears. I rubbed my palms along the couch, fingers tracing the grooves as Doug’s death began to sink deeper towards my core, threatening my heart, family tentatively replacing Doug as the loss. A sense of family I had buried in order to struggle on.

  I pushed hard off the couch. I didn’t wallow in pain when Doug was alive and I couldn’t afford to now that he was dead; I needed answers.

  Doug’s bedroom was a mess but not nearly as bad as my own room. I flipped on the light and frantically pulled out drawers from his desk, searching for anything that could fill in the blanks. I tossed the game books, flipping through them quickly to see if anything had been slipped inside. Nothing. Bills from ten years ago were piled haphazardly in his desk. I tossed them too. I did the same with his dresser, only finding two old Playboys within the bottom drawer. The sheets on the bed were once white but had become stained from sweat and poor upkeep. Laundry had been the least of Doug’s concerns. I lifted it up and felt a book, bound in leather. How could Doug have kept a journal all this time? The answer was, he couldn’t. I flipped through blank page after blank page. Tears of frustration threatened their return, then a small sheet of paper slipped out and under the bed. I reached under, pulled it out and held it up under the light. On the paper, written in pencil, was a list broken into two columns. On the left was a series of names and dates going back to 2005. On the right, next to each name was a corresponding amount of money. Doug’s IOU list. The money ranged from a couple of hundred dollars to several thousand and even tens of thousands in some cases. Doug had gone through and crossed off each name and amount with a single thin line. Except for one.

  ‘Macanudo, 3805.’ It wasn’t a name, but a place. The Macanudo was one of the tallest buildings in downtown Reno, high on the list of tourist destinations in the past, but with the recession and the new casino went the crowds. If the reporting in the papers was correct, the Macanudo was doing just as poorly as everyone else. I didn’t think Doug had been there in years. Doug listed 3805 five times, the money totaled over fifty grand. If Macanudo
was looking for interest, this might just be who sent thugs to collect. I quickly scanned the list of scratched off names. They were mostly nicknames I didn’t recognize, but A. Love stuck out, scrawled next to one thousand dollars. That bastard had loaned Doug money after all. I put the list back in the book and walked to the kitchen. I washed my face and returned to the mess in my room, flipping the mattress against the wall. My life thrown into a jumbled pile of clothing, books, busted drawers, plastic jewelry. It looked worse than before. It looked like garbage. I stripped out of my salon uniform and sifted through the piles of clothing until I found a red button-down T-shirt and a black pair of jeans slightly torn at the knee.

  I sifted through the mess, nothing in its home. The Bouncer must have swept an arm across every surface of the room looking for the money. I felt sick to my stomach gathering my underwear and bras and placing them back in a drawer that had its knob broken off. Under every strewn garment lay something twisted and broken. The whole room belonged outside in the dumpster.

  A restart.

  The only problem was I had no money and nowhere to go. So I kept at it until my fingers wrapped around the crumpled red, white and blue package.

  The sparklers were old, dried out bits of dust, barely clinging to wire. I lifted them to my nose and took in their gunpowder scent. The family in the video was never coming back. I’d made enough new memories for one night and had to get out of the apartment, go anywhere, do anything to avoid adding the tapes to the pile in the bedroom and starting a bonfire. I donned the warmest jacket I had, a black pea coat smelling of mothballs that some Old Money had barely worn and sent off to Good Will. The wreckage looked just like it did three years ago and I couldn’t take that again. Not now, not with the shit Doug had piled on and left me to deal with. I grabbed my purse and stumbled down the stairs and back outside.